Friday, April 27, 2012

Religion Doesn't Belong in Politics

In
a wonderful move that bodes well for the future of the country, Libya has
banned any political parties that are based on religion, tribe or
ethnicity. Bear in the mind, the country
is 98 percent Muslim, according to the latest figures.

That
doesn’t mean Muslims can’t vote for Muslim candidates or that political leaders
cannot express their religious sentiments.
It means only that any party must take in the entire population in its
decisions, not just those that share its religious, political or ethnic ties.

What
a concept: a bipartisan approach to leadership.

I
wonder if we could consider that idea in this country?

After
all, Rick Santorum (left) is on record as saying the separation of church and state
makes him sick. So do people who don’t
worship as he does. "I don't
believe in an America where the separation between church and state is
absolute," he said.

Too
bad he wasn’t around when the Puritans controlled Massachusetts. He might have had a different idea. They didn’t want anyone there who didn’t
believe as they did. They booted out one
inhabitant after another and killed a few more.
One of the men they banned was Roger Williams, who was saved in the
middle of a New England winter by savage Indians, who had no such restrictions
on faith. They saw him as a human being
in need of help.

He
learned their language and often negotiated with them to prevent bloodshed and
to purchase land.

Williams
(right) recognized the irony of supposed heathens who acted more religiously than those
who wanted a “pure” society.

As
a result, he founded Providence Plantation (plantation in those days meant the same as
“colony” today) and insisted on freedom of religion. There, he welcomed all the outcasts from the
Puritan reign. When the Puritans hung
Quakers, Williams encouraged Quaker refugees to join him, even though he did
not agree with their philosophy.

He
was still a Puritan; he just wasn’t so self-righteous as to believe that
there’s only one route to the divine.

In
time, his views were combined with those in Virginia, where English traders did
not want to import the religious wars that convulsed Europe and early on began
to move away from domination of the Anglican Church. Initially, Virginians paid for priests and
for churches.

Naturally,
had such Anglican religious leaders been in Massachusetts, they would have been
condemned.

Appalled
by the sight of Baptist ministers forced to preach from their jail cells in
Anglican-dominated Virginia, James Madison (left) helped lead the charge in Virginia,
insisting the freedom of religion was the necessary step to ensure
liberty. Eventually, his ideas were
enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

As
a result, this country has no party that is linked directly to a particular
religion. That may change, as the
Republican Party continues to yoke itself to conservative Christian views and
give credence to such ideologues like Santorum.

The determined effort by the
religious right to inject faith into politics is showing up in polls. According
to a Gallup survey released this week, “Religion is playing a key role in
determining which presidential candidate Americans support, with President
Barack Obama (right) enjoying a wide lead over Mitt Romney among moderately and less
religious voters and Romney dominating among very religious voters.

The survey noted that “There are
stark differences in the preferences of voters based on how religious they are,
regardless of their specific faith tradition. Very religious voters, who say
religion is a key part of daily life and who attend a house of worship almost
every week or more often, account for 41 percent of voters and back Romney over
Obama by 54 percent to 37 percent.”

Religion
does not belong in the political arena.
It is, after all, hardly set in stone.
Ask former Secretary of State Madeline Albright (right), who was raised Catholic
and did not find out until in her 50s that she was actually born into a Jewish
family who wanted to protect her from prejudice.

Religions
change, too. What may be dogma today
could just as easily be an anathema a few decades later. Remember when eating
meat on Friday was a mortal sin for Catholics?

Politics
are designed to provide direction to the state; religion is designed to guide the
soul. They have nothing in common nor
should.

Libya -- who would guess that country would model anything? --
has made that very clear. Americans need
to maintain the same distance between religion and politics. If not, we haven’t a prayer of maintaining
our freedoms.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly
writes about religion and religious history.
He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout
Florida. You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.com. He is the author of the famed Unauthorized
Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel
Writers Get Their Information; Noel:
The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols;and Dummies Guide to Comparative
Religion. His books are available on Amazon.com,
Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.

About Me

During his career, Bill has been a newspaper reporter, magazine writer/editor, advertising copywriter and writer/editor of NASCAR programs, among other jobs. He has won three international awards for stories and programs while working for International Speedway Corp. and was named 2000 Florida Feature Writer of the Year.
He has published four books to date and his writing has appeared in hundreds of local, regional, state and national publications.